Body positivity is a practice. So how do we do it?

I started teaching movement in 2002 with body positivity as my core philosophy. Since then, my body has lived through two decades of aging, a chronic illness, a forty-pound weight fluctuation, and the dramatic arrival of perimenopause. Through all of that, I've continued to dance, do yoga, and inhabit my body in lots of joyful ways, and body positivity has been the mindset that made it possible.

I practice body positivity like I practice sun salutations, hip isolations, and eating healthy - sometimes I'm deeply dedicated, and other times I struggle. But I've learned that when I actively practice this way of thinking, it is capable of having a profound affect on my life.

So how do you take this philosophy and turn it into a way of being? Let's look at how we do it at Sacred Shimmy Studio and consider how it can be applied to your daily life.

Let's start with a simple definition. What is body positivity?

I really like this definition offered by Mallorie Dunn:

"To me, body positivity means accepting the body you have as well as the changes in shape, size, and ability it may undergo due to nature, age, or your own personal choices throughout your lifetime. It's the understanding that your worth and what's going on with you physically are two separate entities — that no matter what's happening inside, outside, or to your body, you're still just as worthwhile as the person next to you."

As a Gen X feminist, my views on body positivity have been influenced by Virgie Tovar, Nomy Lamm, Health At Every Size (HAES), and some amazing belly dancers I met in my early 20s who were way farther along the path than I was.

In recent years, there have been some solid (and suspect) critiques of body positivity, which I'll explore in a blog post soon. For now, let me offer you two strategies you might employ to try it out in daily life. I'll hit you with a few more next week.

Practice #1: No recrimination for weight gain. No celebration of weight loss.

Body positivity thinkers often recommend not weighing yourself. I practiced that for many years. I didn't have a scale at home and stayed away from the scale at the gym. Occasionally, however, like at the doctor's office, the naked fact of my weight still found ways to punch me in the gut.

Then I started practicing radical self love (more on that in another post), and I started weighing myself every single day. I also started saying my weight out loud to other people.

What this did for me was normalize the fact of my weight as represented by the number on the scale. Once normalized, it began to lose its power over me. There is no functional difference in how my weight changes from Monday to Tuesday, or from Monday to Monday, or from the first of last month to the first of this month. When weight stops being a meaningful measure of your value or abilities, you can move on to something else.

In class, I ask folks to avoid discussions of weight gain or weight loss. These topics are too loaded for most people to handle mindfully, which means we tend to default to societal standards. I don't like defaults, especially to societal standards, so in class we just avoid it altogether.

Practice #2: Instead of can and can't, investigate the world through how and why.

Feeling uncomfortable in your body often leads to faulty assumptions about what is and isn't possible for you. People have told me they're too fat to bellydance, unaware that skillful movement of the body's fat is the heart of bellydance technique! People have told me they're too stiff to do yoga, unaware that yoga is a technology to help stiff people!

Listen: you will blow your own mind if you stop asking if you can do something, and ask instead how you might try it.

Here's an example. I studied Bengali folk dance and Indian classical dance for about ten years. I was older than most of the other students (like, some of my classmates were celebrating their fifth birthdays) and heavier, too. When I went into the deep knee bend required at the beginning of each practice, my right knee sounded like somebody stepped on bubble wrap.

One response to this might have been to tap out. I could have easily said, "Ah, well, I'm too old and fat to do this dance. Back to doomscrolling."

Instead, I took responsibility for myself and worked to figure out how my unique body could practice Indian dance. If a deep lunge bothered my knee, I asked my teachers for a modification. When I felt self-conscious about jumping, I investigated how to make it look graceful in my body. (Hint: a more supportive bra is a time-tested solution to many if not all of life's problems.)

When folks get frustrated in dance or yoga class, their brains and words default to the simple phrase, "I can't do it." Adults are particularly impatient with themselves when learning something new -- it feels easier just to divide yourself out as someone who is incapable of doing that thing. Instead, try saying, "Wow, that didn't come naturally. How can I work on this?" The empowerment that follows will be an absolute delight.

Experiment with these tips a few times this week, and pay attention to how things shift for you. I'd love to hear about your results! Check back next week for another three practices to try.